A Report On The E-C Translation Of Metaphors In The Promise Under The Guidance Of Relevance Translation Theory

Metaphor is both a linguistic phenomenon and an indispensable cognitive tool for human beings.The Promise is a stream-of-consciousness novel about the history and society of South African.To deal with the logical organization of language and the diffused nature of consciousness,the author relies on the basic human cognitive operation—metaphor.In the translation of The Promise,influenced by its short and incomplete sentences,some metaphors are quite implicit in form with the tenor hidden and the vehicle indirect.In addition,due to the differences between two languages and cultures,some metaphors does not belong to the cognitive environment of Chinese readers,making their translation difficult.If the problem is not well solved,it will not be able to effectively convey the original author’s intentions and will cause difficulties for readers to understand.According to Relevance Translation Theory,the translation of metaphors is an“ostensive-inferential” cognitive process.For the notion of Optimal Relevance,the translation should achieve adequate contextual effect without putting gratuitous processing efforts on the targeted readers.The theory focuses on the cognitive and inferential processes of metaphor translation.It fits with the cognitive tendency of stream-of-consciousness texts that attach importance to the flow of consciousness and cognitive habits of characters.Under the guidance of Relevance Translation Theory,this report conducts case analysis to the problems of metaphor translation in The Promise,like incomprehensible metaphor translation,metaphor images not fitting the cognitive context of Chinese readers and failure to convey the original author’s communicative intention.Based on Peter Newmark’s metaphor translation strategies,the translator adopts different strategies for the problems exited in metaphor translation,and deals with them according to Gutt’s framework of direct and indirect translation.At first,For concise metaphors whose tenors and vehicles are obvious,and their images belong to the cognitive context shared by Chinese and English readers,direct translation can be the first choice,such as reproduction of the original metaphor and translation of metaphor by simile.It should be noted that the latter also belongs to direct translation.Because metaphor and simile are basically the same in terms of definition,elements and effects.Secondly,some metaphors should be translated in indirect translation.When Chinese and English readers have different perceptions to the metaphor,the same image may have different meanings in different cultures.Indirect translation allows the translator to make necessary adjustments to the original text in any way,including replacement of the original image and deletion of the original image.If the image in the source language has a corresponding expression in the target readers’ cognitive context,the expression familiar to the target readers is preferred.But when the image is not common and there is no corresponding expression,the translator should give priority to conveying the communicative intention of the author of the original text.Last but not least,the combination of direct and indirect translation covers translation of metaphor by simile plus sense and reproduction of the image in view of its sense.For some implicit metaphors,the form of simile and adding senses can provide the targeted readers with more information about the source text.And reproduction of the image in view of its sense can also achieve the optimal relevance.In translation practice,there are differences in the cognitive contexts of Chinese and English readers,and translators should choose translation strategies flexibly without sticking to the certain one.